At present, wireless communication systems are developing rapidly, and along with large-scale using of GPRS systems and 3G communication systems, more and more service types are emerging. As charging may be involved in each kind of service, and usually charging modes of different services are different, each service enabler, which can be referred to as service unit, involved in charging has to interconnect with charging system to implement charging.
Charging network mainly includes a couple of service enablers and several charging systems. The service enabler is an application server, such as Multimedia Messaging Service Center (MMSC), Push-to-Talk over Cellular (POC) server, Presence server, location server, game server, Instant Messaging (IM) server, or Personal Information Management (PIM) server, etc. Charging systems include online charging system and offline charging system. In this case, online charging system can be Intelligence Network (IN) charging system in the operator domain, or a credit card payment system in the Internet domain; and offline charging system can be Operation Support System (OSS) or Billing Support System (BSS). Moreover, charging network may also include Home Subscriber Servers (HSSs), Home Location Registers (HLRs), and customer service management systems, through which service enablers can obtain relevant information.
In the related art, service enablers can directly connect to charging systems and interact with them to implement charging. Since users, e.g., post-paid subscribers, pre-paid subscribers, credit card account users, virtual personal account users of operator charging system, etc., initiating services to service enablers usually have different user properties and account properties, service enablers are usually required to interconnect with different charging systems to implement charging for the services initiated by different users.
The charging network illustrated in FIG. 1 includes four service enablers, namely service enabler 1 through 4, three charging systems, namely charging system 1 through 3, an HLR, an HSS and a customer service center. Here, the charging systems may be offline charging systems or online charging systems, which may belong to different operators or are located in different geographic regions. It can be seen that in this charging network, the service enablers are directly connected to the charging systems and other systems such as HLR, HSS and the customer service center, so the structure of the charging network may be complicated, and multiple interfaces may be needed for each of the service enablers to connect to all these systems, which will lead to the complexity of the service enabler.
Along with the development of communication services, more and more user properties and account properties appear, and service enablers are required to connect to multiple charging systems, which result in complexity of the existing charging network. In addition, direct interaction between service enablers and charging systems may reduce security of the charging network, especially in the case when a service enabler performs interaction with a charging system on the Internet, the direct interaction between an operator domain and the Internet domain may inevitably reduce the security of the whole operator domain. And as service enablers are directly connected to charging systems, it is impossible to correlate and aggregate charging information obtained from several service enablers in a charging operation.
In the deployment of networks, there exist a variety of interfaces with one function, the protocols of which were developed by different organizations of OMA, 3GPP, 3GPP2, ITU and IETF. Thus, the problems related to compatibility and adaptation will emerge in case that a service enabler and a charging system do not support the same interface protocol formulated by an organization, and it will be difficult to implement smooth connection and interworking.
Described above is an introduction of the network composition for implementing service charging in the related art. On the basis of the foregoing network composition, a charging procedure in the related art is illustrated in FIG. 2, and detailed descriptions of the steps are given below:
Step 201: After a subscriber triggers a charging event at a service enabler, the service enabler performs authentication for the user, i.e., verifies whether the user has the right to access the service resources and whether the user is valid. If it is decided that the user has the right to access the service resources and it is valid, the authentication is considered as successful and Step 202 is performed afterwards; otherwise, perform Step 212.
In this step, the service enabler may authenticate the user according to the information stored in itself, or according to relevant information obtained through interaction with external devices such as customer service center, HSS or HLR.
Step 202: The service enabler determines a charging mode and a corresponding charging system for the user according to the user information, and decides whether the charging mode is online charging. If it is online charging, proceed to Step 203; otherwise, proceed to Step 210.
The service enabler may decide the charging mode and the corresponding charging system for the user according to the information stored in itself, or according to relevant information obtained through interaction with external devices such as customer service center, HSS or HLR.
Step 203: The service enabler acquires tariff information. In this step, the service enabler may acquire the tariff information from itself, or from other sources such as rating engine, namely a service tariff information database, or a corresponding online charging system.
Step 204: Authorize the credit of the user according to the acquired tariff information, that is, determine whether the expense of the user exceeds a preset limit of expense. If it doesn't exceed the preset limit of expense, proceed to Step 205; otherwise, proceed to Step 209.
The preset limit of expense may be set in service enabler, or in related external system, such as online charging system, by the system or the user in advance.
Step 205: Generate a reservation request message according to the tariff-related information, and send the message to a corresponding online charging system.
Step 206: After receiving the charging event sent from the service enabler and debiting the user's account, the online charging system returns a reservation confirmation message to the service enabler.
Step 207: After receiving the reservation confirmation message, the service enabler continues with the service. When the service is completed, the service enabler collects statistics on the total consumed amount of the service, calculates the unconsumed amount, and sends the information containing the unconsumed amount to the corresponding charging system.
In this step, if the service enabler finds out that the reservation amount is used up before the service is completed, it will send another reservation request message to the corresponding online charging system, then the procedure will return to Step 205 and its subsequent steps.
Step 208: After receiving the information containing the unconsumed amount, the charging system will return the unconsumed amount to the corresponding account. After that, the procedure is ended.
Step 209: Return a message to the user to inform that the service is terminated due to insufficient credit, and then end the procedure.
Step 210: The service enabler acquires tariff information. In this step, the service enabler may acquire the tariff information from itself, or from other devices such as rating engines, namely service tariff information database, or corresponding offline charging systems.
Step 211: A charging request is generated according to the tariff information acquired and sent to a corresponding offline charging system. The corresponding offline charging system deducts a prescribed amount of money from the corresponding account according to the charging request message received, and then the procedure is ended.
Step 212: The service enabler returns an authentication failure message to the user, and ends the service. After that, the procedure is ended.
Before Step 211, the service enabler may also authorize the credit of the user in the same way as in the online charging procedure.
In the above charging procedures, service enabler need authenticate the user, acquire the tariff information and authorize the credit of the user. Since the relevant information needs to be stored in the service enabler itself, or obtained by the service enabler from other related devices during these procedures, the complexity of the service enabler may be increased.
Additionally, when the relevant information is stored in the service enabler, each service enabler needs to store various kinds of information related to itself, and would not share the information with one another, and it will lead to repetition of mass information and a waste of resources. In the case when the relevant information is obtained by the service enabler from other related devices, each service enabler need set up a direct connection with the device to be interacted with, which may make the charging network more complex as well.